EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS AND CANTICLES

SUNDAY AT MATINS

INVITATORY - PSALM XCIV OF THE PSALTER

1. Come let us praise the Lord with joy: let us joyfully sing to God our Savior. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.

2. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

For in his hand are all the ends of the earth and the heights of the mountains are his.

3. For the sea is his, and he made it and his hands formed the dry land. Come let us adore and fall down and weep before the Lord that made us.

For he is the Lord our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

4. Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts;

As in provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness; where your fathers tempted me, they proved me and saw my works.

5. Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in their heart.

And these men have not known my ways so I swore in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest.

1. "Prceoccupemusfaciem ejus in confessione." Before the rising of the sun, let us be found in the presence of the Savior, topraise him and to confess to him our faults. St. Augustine

says: "Est confessio laudantis, confessio gementis. There is the confession of him who praises, and the confession of him who mourns."

2. "Omnes deos All the false gods and all the kings of the earth." "Altitudines montium Earthly powers," according to St. Augustine; that is to say: The Lord regards alike the powerful of the world and the poor whom the world despises; for all are in his power; therefore he does not reject any of his people.

4. "Sicut in exacerbatione ." "It must" here be remarked that this passage is in the Office, as it was anciently read in the psalm; but it was afterwards corrected, as it is now in the

psalter, where we read: "Sicut inirritatione, secundum diem tentationis in deserto, ubi tentaverlint me patres vestri; probaverunt me, et viderunt opera mea." This version, with which the English translation agrees, better explains the text, of which the sense is as follows: It is God who here speaks to the Hebrews, and he says to them: Harden not your hearts, as you did formerly when you provoked me to anger in the wilderness, where your fathers wished to tempt me, to see whether I was the true God, when in that barren and utterly destitute place they sought for water, bread, and flesh; they found by experience at the sight of my wonderful works that I can do all things according to my own pleasure.

5. "Proxtinus" Instead of this word, we read in the corrected version, or the psalter, Offensus; and St. Paul says, Offensus (Heb. iii. 10). But it is the same thing, as Du Hamel and

Bellarmine remark, if Proximus is put for Proximus ad ulciscendum. Semper hi errant corde ipsi vero non cognoverunt vias meas" They have always a perverse heart; they do not wish to know my righteous judgments. "Requiem meant." My rest, that is to say, the land that I promised them.

PSALMS OF THE FIRST NOCTURN

PSALM I

OF THE OFFICE AND OF THE PSALTER

1. Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence:

2. But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.

3. And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit, in due season

4. And his leaf shall not fall off and all whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper.

5. Not so the wicked, not so but like the dust, which the wind driveth from the face of the earth.

6. Therefore the wicked shall not rise again in judgment: nor sinners in the council of the just.

7. For the Lord knoweth the way of the just and the way of the wicked shall perish.

1. "In cathedra pestilentic non sedit." That is to say: Who does not teach false and pernicious doctrines. Instead of the word Pestilentice, St. Jerome has Derisorum, which according to the proper Hebrew signification means scoffers, or impostors who teach falsehood. The Septuagint have understood same expression in the sense of pests, or chair of pestilence. These renderings, however, come to much the same sense; for the impious, such as atheists and heretics, are, as is explained by St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Basil, the pest of the world by the false and pernicious doctrines that they teach.

2. The just man wills what God ordains in his law; hence he continually meditates on it.

4. This tree will always preserve its leaves, which will help to ripen the fruit; thus will all the works of the just man prosper.

5. "Pulvis." Pagnini translates the Hebrew word by Gluma chaff, light straw or husks that are separated from the seed by threshing, winnowing, etc.

6. "Non resurgent" That is, according to the Hebrew text: Non stabunt, non subsistent they shall not stand, shall not keep their ground; and according to the Chaldee version: Non justificabuntitr they shall not be justified (Bossuet). This means that the wicked at the last judgment will not be able to oppose the just vengeance of Jesus Christ.

7. Iffvit. That is to say, approves and blesses. Peribit, shall end in ruin.

PSALM II

OF THE FIRST NOCTURN

1. Why have the Gentiles raged and the people devised vain things?
2. The kings of the earth stood up and the princes met together against the Lord and against his Christ.
3. Let us break their bonds asunder and let us cast away their yoke from us.
4. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laught at them and the Lord shall deride them.
5. Then shall he speak to them in anger and trouble them in his rage.
6. But I am appointed king by him over Sion his holy mountain, preaching his commandment.
7. The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have begotten thee.
8. Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9. The shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and shalt break them in pieces like a potter s vessel.
10. And now O ye kings understand receive instruction you that judge the earth.
11. Serve ye the Lord with fear and rejoice unto him with trembling.
12. Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way.
13. When his wrath shall be kindled in a short time, blessed are all they that shall trust in him.

1. This verse predicts that it will be in vain that so many enemies conspire against the Messias. St. Jerome translates the words Fremuerunt and Meditati sunt in the future tense;

but Bellarmine rightly says that here the version of the Vulgate, which agrees with the Septuagint, should be preferred; for in the Acts of the Apostles, as we have seen, the two verbs are in the past tense. The words "Meditati sunt mania they have devised vain things," are used, because these enemies while endeavoring to destroy the kingdom of Christ only cooperated in its establishment.

2. "Reges et principes." By these kings and princes are meant not only Herod, Pilate, and the chief priests of the Jews, but also all the emperors and all the kings of the Gentiles who

have persecuted the Church of Jesus Christ. The prophet intimates thereby that the enemies in persecuting Christ have also made war against God; for the Messias, by his miracles had proved that he was the Son of God. As to the first word of the verse, "Astiterunt" according to the sense of the Hebrew text, it is properly to be understood of the counsel that the Jews took among themselves to compass the arrest and the death of Jesus Christ.

3. David makes the enemies of God and of Christ speak here. They say: Let us free ourselves from their rule and their laws. "Jugum." Instead jugum ipsorum their yoke, St. Jerome

has laqueos eorum their snares. The wicked hate the laws of God; they regard them only as a yoke, and as insupportable chains.

4. David announces that God will dissipate and confound all the plots of his enemies, and will turn their designs to ridicule. This was accomplished by the destruction of idolatry, the dispersion of the Jews, and the conversion of the Gentiles to the faith.

5. God spoke to the wicked, and confounded them, not by words, but by the terrible punishments that he inflicted on them. "In ira sua, et in furore suo." We here observe that God never does anything in anger, as men do when they act through passion and with trouble of mind; for the Lord disposes and does everything with moderation and in tranquility. "Thou judgest with tranquility Cum tranquillitate judicas" (Wisd. xii. 18). Hence, when one reads in Scripture that God becomes angry, we are to understand that he chastises sinners, not to conduct them to eternal salvation, as he often does in regard to some whom he chastises in order to bring them to repentance, but only that he is chastising them solely to punish them, and to give free course to his justice.

6. "Ego autem constitutus sum Rex abeo super Sion, montem sanctum ejus" Here it is Jesus Christ that speaks; he will say to them I have been made king, not by men, but by God, my

Father, over his holy mountain of Sion; that is to say, over his Church, which, as St. Augustine says,...